Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXCW26T276GT7TZFN9DJDD

The smell hit Quinn first—copper and rot mingling with something acrid that made her sinuses burn. She ducked beneath the police tape strung across the entrance to the abandoned Tube station, her boots finding purchase on the slick stairs that descended into Camden's forgotten underground. The forensics lights cast harsh shadows across Victorian-era tilework, most of it cracked and stained with decades of neglect. DS Patel waited at the bottom, his face waxen in the artificial glare. "Boss. You're going to want gloves for this one." Quinn snapped on the latex without comment, scanning the platform as she approached. The body lay crumpled against the far wall, a young man in his twenties wearing an expensive jacket that didn't match the location. Blood pooled beneath him, but the pattern was wrong—too contained, as if it had been poured rather than spilled from trauma. "What do we know?" "Marcus Chen, twenty-four. Investment banker at Barclays." Patel consulted his notebook. "Flatmate reported him missing three days ago. No signs of struggle at his residence, wallet and phone still in his pocket with two hundred quid in cash." Quinn crouched beside the body, examining the visible wounds. Three parallel lacerations across the throat, deep and precise. The edges were too clean for a knife, the spacing too regular. She'd seen claw marks before, mostly in animal attack cases where dogs had gone feral. These were similar but larger, more deliberate in their placement. "Theory?" "Vagrant attack, maybe. Someone living rough down here caught Chen wandering where he shouldn't." Patel shifted his weight. "There's a couple of homeless encampments in the deeper tunnels. Could have been defending territory." Quinn stood, following the blood trail with her eyes. It led not from the entrance but from a recessed alcove that once housed ticket machines. The machines were long gone, leaving only mounting brackets bolted to brick. She walked over, noting the scuff marks on the ground—circular patterns in the grime, as if something heavy had been dragged in circles. "Why would Chen come down here in a thousand-pound coat?" She ran her light across the alcove's interior. "This station's been sealed for forty years. The entrance was chained until recently." "Maybe curiosity? Urban exploration's popular with the finance crowd. They get bored counting money." Quinn examined the chains that had secured the entrance gate. Fresh bolt cutter marks scored the metal, but rust still caked the severed ends. Someone had cut through weeks ago, possibly longer. She knelt, studying the threshold where generations of dirt had accumulated. Boot prints, at least a dozen different treads, tracked in and out. Some were recent enough that she could make out manufacturer patterns in the dust. "This location sees regular traffic." Patel moved closer, crowding her light with his own. "Squatters, like I said." "Squatters don't wear Timberlands and Doc Martens in matching sizes." She pointed to a particularly clear print. "That's a women's size seven. And here—trainers, probably Nike, men's eleven. Look at the depth and spacing. These aren't homeless shuffles. These are people walking with purpose." She moved deeper into the platform, following the boot prints toward a service tunnel that branched off into darkness. The forensics team had set up markers here, yellow plastic pyramids flagging points of interest. Quinn catalogued each one—a discarded glass vial near marker three, scorch marks on the wall by marker seven, and near marker twelve, scratched into the brick in what looked like charcoal: coordinates and a date from two weeks prior. "Bag this." Quinn indicated the writing. "And get photos of those burn patterns. I want accelerant analysis." "Could be kids messing about. Drinking, lighting fires." Quinn pulled out her phone, photographing the coordinates herself. Something about them nagged at her, a half-remembered detail from another case. She zoomed in on the charcoal marks, noting the precision of the handwriting. Each number was carefully rendered, almost calligraphic. The vial near marker three was small, pharmaceutical-grade glass with a rubber stopper. She bent to examine it without touching, noting the residue coating the interior—dark and viscous, with an iridescent sheen when her light hit it at the right angle. The smell was stronger here, that same acrid note that had burned her nose at the entrance. "What's the tox screen timeline?" "Rush job. Forty-eight hours, maybe less." Quinn straightened, surveying the entire scene with fresh perspective. The body's position, the contained blood pool, the evidence of regular traffic, the coordinates, the vial—none of it aligned with a random vagrant attack. Chen hadn't stumbled into danger. He'd been meeting someone, or searching for something. Her gaze drifted to Chen's hands. She moved back to the body, crouching again to study his fingers. The right hand was clenched in rigor mortis, but the left lay open, palm up. A black residue stained his palm and fingers, the same iridescent quality as the vial's contents. She leaned closer, catching a scent beneath the blood—herbs and sulfur and something older, like church incense left to moulder in damp stone. "When was the last time you saw wounds like this?" Patel frowned. "Never, boss. That's the thing. Coroner's preliminary says the lacerations show tool marks, not organic patterns. Whatever made them wasn't claws or nails." "So someone wanted it to look like an animal attack but didn't quite nail the details." "Why go to the effort?" Quinn stood again, her mind cataloguing and connecting. The coordinates on the wall, the regular foot traffic, the ritualistic precision of the throat wounds, the strange substances. This location wasn't random—it was chosen, used, maintained by people who knew exactly what they were doing and went to lengths to keep it hidden. She pulled out her phone again, dialling the station. Two rings, then the night desk picked up. "This is Quinn. I need you to pull any reports of suspicious activity near Camden Tube stations going back six months. Cross-reference with missing persons and unsolved assaults in the area. Also, contact the British Museum's security office. Tell them I need to speak with someone from their restricted archives first thing tomorrow." Patel raised an eyebrow. "The museum?" Quinn ignored him, walking the perimeter of the platform once more. Near the service tunnel entrance, another detail caught her attention—scratch marks in the concrete, forming what might have been symbols before time and wear had degraded them. She photographed those too, already compiling a list of experts she'd need to consult. Her partner Morris had kept a network of specialists, academics who could identify obscure markings and unusual materials. She'd avoided them since his death, but this case wouldn't crack itself. "Get me everything from Chen's life. Bank records, phone logs, social media, gym membership—I want to know every place he went and everyone he spoke to in the month before he died. And find out if he had any connections to antiquities, museums, or historical societies." "You're thinking this is organized?" Quinn met his gaze. "I'm thinking we're looking at the crime scene but not the crime. This station's being used for something, and Chen got in the way. We find out what happens down here, we find our killer."